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Theatre Brief w/ Enjoy the Play (Theatre (Brief Edition))

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I guess that you'd have to say that this book is an introduction to the Theatre. But that would be cutting it pretty short. This is the shorter, 400+ page version of Mr. Cohen's 600+ page book. It has some 280 photographs (instead of 370). Although this book is the Brief Edition, it is hard to tell in looking them over to see that anything is missing from its bigger brother. It has history of the theater, it has a world tour of theater in other places, it has technical sections on subjects like lighting, costumes, makeup, and sound.

The major theme in the book is a description of what a play is, what it does, how it does it. This is done by an analysis of the general rules of play writing, and an analysis (with extensive excerpts) from seven plays: Prometheus Bound, Odipus Tyrannos, The York Cycle, Romeo and Juliet, The Bourgeois Gentlemen, The Three Sisters, and Happy Days.

This seventh edition is updated to include the most recent offerings, recent trends in the theater, an inside view of several prominent Americna playwrights, reorganization of the chapter on musical and contemporary theater, and finally a short booklet called 'Enjoy the Play' on simply going to a play and enjoying it.